Our Services

Overview

When we launched our practice back in 1990, we could have named it anything. Bloomington Hearing Clinic, perhaps? Maybe BN Hearing Aids? But we chose Bloomington Normal Audiology because even then, we were committed to the idea that any doctor in our office would be an audiologist. What does that mean?

Well, just as highly trained doctors of medicine have the letters M.D. after their name, the letters for the highest trained doctors of audiology are Au.D. That means after you’ve earned a 4-year bachelor’s degree you must then go on to complete 4 more years of doctoral-level academic and clinical training, then pass a national exam, then get licensed by the state. It’s a lot of books.

Why does that matter to you? Well, if you’ve decided to take any action with your hearing, from prevention to comprehensive evaluations to tinnitus to assistive devices, if you don’t see the letters Au.D., you might want to keep looking.

All four of our doctors are Au.D.’s.

Now we don’t say all that to toot our own horn, because honestly the most important thing about audiology isn’t what you learn in class. Brilliant professors can teach you diagnostics, acoustics, and phonetics, but they can’t teach you how it feels to live with hearing change.

And that’s what sets BNA apart: we take a genuine interest in each patient because we know, personally, what that is like. Two of our audiologists wear hearing devices themselves, and the other two have immediate family members with hearing challenges. We’re not just medical experts in this, we live it.

So while those Au.D. letters after our names are important, what matters most is when we look at our appointments each day and see the letters of your name.

We hope you’ll choose BNA as your hearing healthcare provider, but if you’re still considering your next steps, we encourage you to use our Better Hearing Checklist, shown below. This document highlights what we feel are important factors for each patient we meet, from the initial evaluation and beyond.

Continued below is a very brief outline of our primary services, so we hope you’ll contact us soon to schedule an appointment, where we’ll be happy to share more information. We’ll check your hearing, do a lot of listening, and then start walking down this road together.

Personal Hearing Profile

Your Personal Hearing Profile is a comprehensive, customized evaluation tool developed by BNA to tell you almost everything you ever wanted to know about your hearing. The Profile contains:

Personal Hearing Report

Explanations

Personalized Recommendations

Customized Hearing Schedule

Taking a genuine, personal interest in each patient means taking the time to get to know you, understand your lifestyle and listening goals, and assess the degree of hearing challenges you face. The image below is a tool designed to help define your listening lifestyle based on your activity level. All of these factors help us determine which ‘tier’ of products and services are the best match for you. We want to ensure that we’re connecting you with the device that will most effectively keep you hearing the most important sounds of your life.

Tinnitus

Tinnitus is the annoying sensation of hearing a sound when no external sound is actually present. It’s commonly described as hearing a “ringing in your ears,” but can also manifest as a buzzing, clicking, roaring or hissing sound. This phantom noise is wide-ranging, as it can be loud or soft, in one ear or both, and can be present all the time or come and go. Tinnitus may be a condition itself, or a symptom of another underlying condition, so if you believe you’re experiencing discomfort due to phantom noises, contact BNA. We can help.

Auditory Processing Evaluation

Auditory processing disorder (APD), a neurological condition also known as central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), affects the brain’s ability to process auditory input, making it difficult to understand speech, follow oral instructions, or distinguish speech in noisy environments. Though APD awareness has increased in recent years, confusion about the disorder abounds. It can appear simultaneously with conditions such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, so it’s important that those with APD symptoms get evaluated by an audiologist for proper diagnosis.